Right, mixing colours to get a specific other colour, and maybe a little bit on overall colour design, like lighting of a setting and such.
I know I could just buy some stuff at amazon, but I'd like some recommendations from folks here in the forum first....

well do you know the primary and secondary colours? ill just assume you dont and tell you now. your primary colours for paint and pencil crayon and all that type of stuff is Red, Yellow and Blue. now these are the 3 most important colours. basicaly these are the only colours you need. these colours will give you your secondary colours when mixed. so if you mix red and yellow you get orange. when you mix yellow and blue you get green and finaly. when you mix blue and red you get violet(or purple. whatever you wish to call it). but if you mix 2 seconday colours you get a muddy colour. but if you mix a primary and a secondary you get something called an intermediate colour. like if you mix yellow and orange. you get an yellow-orange. pretty stright forward.

something you could do to help yourself remember all these is to make a colour wheel. so for something quick, just make 6 boxes that form a circle sorta, doesnt have to be perfect or anything. then in the top box just paint a pure red into it. then skip one box and paint a yellow in that one, then skip another box and paint a blue into that one. following so far? good ... now take some red and yellow paint and mix it together and now paint that into the box in between the red and yellow one. then after that mix some yellow and blue and paint that in between the yellow and blue boxes and same for the blue and red. hope that made sence and i hope this is what you were wanting to know

Well, I already picked up that much in school. The main problem that I was fighting with was that I was trying to paint an area in a slightly blue, light green. But all I managed to acchieve were different tones of blue greys and blue....

Painting an acrylics painting for my parents a few weeks ago I noticed just how bad I suck at mixing colours. It turned out pretty nice, but far from what I was trying to acchieve.
So can anyone recommend any good books on colour theory, mixing colours and learning how to draw in colour. Nothing that talks for endless hours on the subject, but nothing too basic either.

The problem you have with not being able to mix the right tones/colours you want is partly down to the acryilcs themselves. Some colours just don't mix as well as they should, due to the man made pigment used to produce them.

If you were to try making a purple by mixing a basic blue and red together..and then compair it to a mid purple staright out of a tube, you'll see what I mean. Now this can be said of any media, but it's far more obvious with acrylic paint. Depending on cash, the only real way around it is to buy extra colours as and when you need them. The bigger the collection of paints, the more accurately you'll be able to mix them.

I personally try and use my oils whenever I can, because the colours mix far better and give a richer finish that the acrylics (bit of triva for you there)

For Acrylics you want to take a look at Stephan Quiller's books, esp. "Acrylic Painting Techniques". He's created a color wheel based on pigments and how they actually work, rather than simply color theory. Great stuff.

Seems like I provided someone with some tips on acrylics before, you might check under "quaternius" in the archives. Something in there may be of help, or not.

What pigments/colors are you using? Maybe that's part of the problem, as mentioned by others.